| Notes |
- Charles was a partner in the Coate Floor Company with his brother Ben. He was a member of Eagles Lodge 2801 at Buckeye Lake. He was a former member of East Columbus Lions. Charles was married for about six months in 1940 to a woman whose surname is not remembered. They lived 2 houses down from his parents house on John St. in Trenton, Ohio. (C-2108) In 1945, he married Jane, his wife of many years and mother of his children. He was a very caring husband to Jane in her last years after she suffered disabilities from a stroke. (C-72) His kindness was returned by his third wife, Wilma, and his sons and daughters-in-law when liver cancer brought the end to his life. It was the same affliction that had taken his father.
Charles lived on Buckeye Lake in Ohio the last several years of his life. He loved to fish and boat. He spent many of his last days enjoying the view from his home. (C-1397) He had several children and grandchildren listed in his obituary that I can't place. Listed with his sons was a David Howell married to Jeri. Listed as stepsons were Carl Dittoe and Darl Dittoe married to Sally and Joanna respectively.
The following lengthy letter to Charles from his brother, Richard, tells a great deal about this family's life. "Richard Coate Brooklyn, NY 11201July 12, 1997
Dear Brother Charles, You'll have to forgive me for the delay in writing this letter. I came down with a case of bronchitis which put me behind schedule. However, the antibiotic has knocked most of it out of my system so I'm doing my best to catch up. I'm sorry that neither Betty or I can be with Shirley when she visits you in Ohio. She's going to spend a couple days with us before she flies to Columbus. She'll get here on Wednesday evening, the 16th and leave on Saturday morning the 19th. She'll get a whirlwind tour of some of the highlights in the neighborhood and Manhattan on Thursday. Friday we'll make a trip up to Jennifer's in Dutchess County. As you know she lives way out in the country surrounded by farm land. The Shenandoah mountain is on the distant horizon - so Shirley will be able to see Jennifer and Joe, their beautiful 175 year old, nine room house and some of the scenic wonders of NY State while she's here.
You have been much on our minds and in our prayers since we got the news of your illness. Betty and I began reflecting upon our childhood and our life in Trenton when our families were all together.
Though the town has changed much in the ensuing years, I still retain the images of what it was way back in the '30s when the population was only 350 and we were kids. Remember taking baths in a wash tub in the kitchen? Norman Rockwell would have had a ball, Mom standing over one of us, with the next in line waiting turn. That was way back when the House of The Seven Smokes was still standing. I don't know about you, but Warren, Bill and I did a lot of foraging around in that abandoned and very spooky building.
I'm glad Daddy had to the sense to get some of the flooring before it was completely demolished. The downstairs of 113 John Street had wide-planked highly-polished ash floors as a result of it. I still remember the Amish rigs on Hamilton Pike and the Model-T Fords, and little Wally Poplin climbing the water-tower, the whole town holding its breath until someone finally rescued him!
Remember the short cut to school through Adam Gozie's corn field. One day he lay in wait, caught me just as I was about to climb the fence onto John Street. Talk about surprise! He booted me in the butt so hard that I peed in my pants. Once he hoisted me over the fence and released his grip I was off and running. Though he spewed out a string of invective I was so terrified couldn't understand a word of it. But I sure did get the gist of it! It was a long, long time before I got up enough nerve to take that short cut again.
After growing up in a rural town like that way back before any of us ever heard of television, who could ever have imagined that in our lifetime there would be such technological wonders as Internet or American scientists landing on the moon, and exploring Mars or the moons of Jupiter! That was "Flash Gordon" or "Buck Rogers" funny paper stuff. And remember the fuss we made over who would be first to read the funnies and we'd all wind up sprawled on the floor with them spread out before us.
Remember those hot summer days when everything seemed to be at a standstill and the long treks we made to the gravel pit to cool off - sometimes twice a day. We'd sometimes stop at the gas station by the railroad tracks opposite the old Scheibert house [where Betty lived before their house was moved up to John Street opposite ours] and if we could afford it we'd buy a coke in one of those glass bottles and pause long enough to drink it while the station attendants went about their business with their attention glued to the baseball game on the radio. And when the train passed through one could hear its whistle all over town.
The gravel pit - now that was a swimming hole! Spring fed no less. If my memory serves me right, wasn't it also stocked with cat fish? I know we caught cat fish from somewhere around Trenton. I believe Mom used to make a batter of corn meal, dip them into it before she plopped them in that big black iron skillet full of lard atop the blue porcelain two oven Kalamazoo wood stove. If the smell of frying cat fish didn't make your mouth water, nothing would.
Talk about kitchen smells. Monday was wash day. Soap suds and beans. One day was ironing day and Mom had stacks of clean smelling linen on the back porch. I'll never forget how it felt to climb into bed and sleep on a freshly washed, sun-dried and hand- ironed sheet. Whoever heard of ironing a sheet these days? One day was house cleaning day, and Mom would put those lace doilies on the sofa and we had to pay special care that we didn't muss them up. Since she raised nine of us, it's a measure of the respect we had for her that those doilies remained in place and unruffled. . Or baking days. Remember how the house smelled when we came home after school. Every surface in the kitchen was filled with baked goods. Golden crusted loaves of bread, big buns, sugar rolls with cinnamon and vanilla icing, doughnuts dipped in powdered sugar! Pies and cakes!
Then there was canning season - the aroma of strawberry jam mixed with the melted wax. The smell of the dinner before we all sat down around the kitchen table. There was many a day when Bill and I would race across the field in time to tune in on an episode of Little Orphan Annie before we sat down to dinner. And on special days we'd have bread pudding for desert. To this day I have never tasted a bread pudding that can match Mom's! And I'll never forget the day that Mom put a big pan of it atop the buffet to cool. Only after Mom had accused everyone else in the house of eating the whole pan full did Daddy finally confess! When he came home there was no one around so he took one look at it and said, "For once in my life I'm going to get my full of bread pudding!" And he did!
Then there were the times on those long summer nights when we played kick the can out under the street light, and in winter we made walnut fudge on top the blue Kalamazoo coal burning stove. Fudge has never tasted as good since! I remember the time that Daddy fell asleep in his living room rocking chair with his jaw agape. Bill and I decided we'd play a joke on him so we ran to the kitchen, got the pepper shaker and sprinkled it on his tongue. We were long gone when he awakened, sputtering and spitting. I don't know if we ever confessed, but this much I know, he never let on that anything unusual ever happened after we finally got nerve enough to go back into the house.
Remember the day that you had that unfortunate encounter with the skunk in the fields to the rear of the house. The creature was concealed in the hedge row near the Seeman farm when you attempted a short cut - just waiting for some wayward kid to challenge his turf! Talk about stink! You called to Mom from the back yard and she made you change clothes and take a bath either outside or on the back porch before you were permitted to come in the house. After that day a Coate kid would make a wide and respectful circle around that hedge row.
And on summer nights, the dazzling array of fireflies hovering over the cornfields; we were mesmerized at the wonder of it and even the distant sound of the train whistle of the Baltimore and Ohio passing through at the other end of town did not break the spell. .Though I doubt that I was born yet or if I was I was too little to remember, but the story was told me so many times it's as if I had witnessed the event myself. Ben and his buddy, George Crug were "camping out" in a pup tent in the alley to the rear of the house - below that wild cherry tree we used to climb. Ben and George had bedded down and settled in for the night - just this side of the fence separating them from the Holtzer cornfield. Awakened by a weird sound and some rustling - Wooooooo ..... Woooooooo! - not unlike the ones Mom used to make when she told us ghost stories - they peeped out of the pup tent flap to investigate when they saw this white figure prancing about between rows of corn, waving its arms about like it was about to take off. Bug-eyed, too paralyzed to move, they stared at the ghost until George finally gathered enough nerve to make a wild dash to his own home to retrieve his BB gun. Returning with a determination to send the phantom back to the place from whence it came, he peppered Dad with two BB shots and was about to fire the third when Dad began raising such a ruckus that George's hair must have stood straight up on his head. Sure that he had all but killed Ben's father, George dropped the gun and made a dash for the Crug home without so much as "I thought you were -" or "I didn't mean to shoot you, Mr. Coate, honest!" George was a stranger to the Coate household for quite some time after that. Fortunately a brass button on Dad's overalls right over his heart deflected one BB while the other was lodged in his chest where it remained until he died. [Note Given Charles' condition at the time I wrote the letter, I couldn't include this During the grave site ceremonies at Woodlawn Cemetery in Middletown, Ohio, just before Mom was laid to eternal rest beside Dad, the minister reminisced, reminding us all of the good times we had with Mom and Dad when we were all kids in our home on John Street in Trenton. The elderly gentleman at the fringe of the large crowd who was sobbing with grief at her passing was George Crug.]
Remember how proud we all were when the Eagle Scout in the family, brother Bob was selected to go with a group all the way to Washington, D. C. to shake President Roosevelt's hand - and the disappointment we all felt when the trip was canceled due to a polio outbreak. Was Dad ever proud of his family!
Though we were poor, our family was always rich in spirit. Though we didn't always have chicken we did have wild rabbit. I wasn't old enough to carry a gun but I'd sometimes tag along for the adventure of the hunt.. I remember we'd get up early, bundle up to brace the early morning chill. Puffing steam, we'd trek over the frosted, frozen turf in the fields to the rear of the house. But I had my share of skinning rabbits. In freezing weather they were sometimes strung up from the eaves of the garage.
Most of all I remember our holidays. Holidays at the Coate house on John Street were always festive, and Mom always said that we had the most beautiful Christmas Tree in Trenton. And I still believe it!
Remember the Billy goat that climbed atop the chicken house roof to butt us off if we didn't pay attention. And the time a bunch of us were gathered outside in the driveway in front of the garage cleaning and repairing bicycles. Shirley, a preschooler, gulped a glass of coal oil thinking it was water. "Look, Shirley's making bubbles" I exclaimed. When Albert realized what she had done, he grabbed her and carried her to the street, yelling at the driver in the passing car to stop! Stop! She was rushed to Dr. Dobbs and he got her to vomit it all up.
Or the time that Shirley fainted on the roller coaster at Lesourdsville Lake and as they carried her around the lake to the aid station - a crowd followed believing she had drowned. As late as 1992 Shirley told me that when she awakened in the arms of the man who was carrying her she decided to faint all over again and fell limp in his arms. I suspect she kept fainting as long as she had an audience - or at least until she was safely inside the aid station.
I remember the time that I was taking a bottle of Fuzzy Weir's root beer out of our coolerater. When it exploded in my hand and I thought for sure I'd lost a thumb. Off to Dr. Dobbs, this time the short cut through Adam Gozie's corn field. I still have the scar on my thumb. I'll never forget the bus trip that Mom and I took during WW II to Ashville, N. C. to visit Marahelen and Charles. The bus was so crowded that Mom sat on my lap. As we rounded those dangerous curves of the Smoky Mountain roads a mountaineer played his guitar and we all sang, "She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes!"
And we all remember our summer vacations with Marahelen and Charles and the wonderful times we had at family gatherings at Uncle Robert and Aunt Margaret's deer hunting cabin in the mountains outside Ashville. What a retreat! And the time we went mountain hiking and Mom very coolly stepped over a rattle snake without so much as a blink. About a half mile below the cabin - diving off the rocks into the cold mountain stream - always on the outlook for water moccasin. And summer vacations on Aunt Mamie and Uncle Joe McKinley's farm in Piqua, Ohio or the Sunday afternoon visits when Aunt Mamie and Mom cooked up those big dinners of fresh farm produce and home baked bread in a brick oven. Ah, the aroma emanating from the kitchen!
And in the depths of the depression, the Christmas we celebrated at Aunt Martha's in Dayton when Uncle Godfrey played Santa to us wide-eyed kids. What a joyous Christmas that was! And speaking of Aunt Martha, I'll never forget the time I sucked in on a whistle when I was supposed to blow out and swallowed the darn thing. Poor Aunt Martha was beside herself with indecision when she grabbed me by the ankles, turned me upside down and bumped my head on the floor hoping I'd cough it up.
Remember when Billy won the prize for best costume at the Halloween Carnival a couple years in a row. Especially the "Tin Man" from the "Wizard Of Oz " he made from flattened tin cans. Bill could also spin a yarn which would have impressed Will Rogers. Was he ever proud when he won him first prize in the Trenton High School Comedy Hour. Of course we all remember the story about Shirley's mishap when her prom date accidentally killed the stray mule which wandered in front of his car on the fog-bound country road somewhere outside Cincinnati. Despite the smashed windshield, neither were hurt. But imagine the shock on Mom's face when, near dawn the next morning, the terrified young boy escorted a disheveled Shirley to the front door, her beautiful yellow chiffon gown splattered with the blood of the poor creature.
And remember the WW II years - when I led the 1943 Memorial Day parade carrying the American flag as we marched through the main streets of town ending up at the knoll overlooking the main intersection for the unveiling and dedication of the WW II Honor Board listing the names of the Trenton military personnel serving their country. And in 1944 when Mom got the dreaded telegram from the President of The United States informing her that Warren was Missing In Action after the D-Day landing. We waited and prayed and gathered around the radio hoping to hear of any news about the Army division with which he served. And finally our prayers were answered when we received a letter from Warren to let us know he was OK. Warren's future wife, Helen Schenck, living with us all through the war years, sharing our anxiety. Remember when Mom used to accompany your kid brother, Dick, on the piano with a resounding version of Turkey In The Straw when he danced black-face in the amateur "Major Bowles" contests as far away as Oxford or Dayton, Ohio. Who could have imagined that this amateur hour contestant would grow up to be Richard Coate, the actor who was among the pioneers of that new broadcast medium, Television, when, in 1948 he appeared on a series on WLW TV in Columbus, Ohio - during his years as a student at OSU - before he became the Korean War rifleman in silhouette in an AP photograph which was destined to attain iconic status, a symbol of American fighting forces in Korea, and a unique place in Cold War history.
I remember that little house on Miami Street that you and Jane lived when some of your kids were born. It was built on a hill and as I recall you had to step down into the kitchen. I didn't think they could make them any smaller until Betty and I moved to New York. Our kitchen on Willow Street here in Brooklyn Heights was little more than a closet - but, like Jane and our mothers, Betty cooked up a storm.
Betty and I recall stopping off at your house to watch television and have a beer - before I was inducted into the army and my tour of duty in Korea. By then we were in college and barring the three summers I spent at home before graduation, I never lived in Trenton again. I really enjoyed the 50th anniversary of our graduating class held at the Manchester Hotel. Class of '44! I hadn't seen most of them since then. We laughed so hard at the stories we had to tell on one another that the young newspaper reporter covering the event was amazed that so many "old folk" had so much life in 'em.
Give our love to Wilma. I'm happy I was able to finally meet her in North Carolina at Marahelen's funeral. She fits right into the family.
Betty sends her love too,
Your brother, Richard"
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1922 - 1997 (75 years)
[9, 10] 